[WEB4LIB] RE: The Necessity of Real-Time Reference?

[Sloan, Bernie]

It's been my experience, from having looked at maybe 2000 transcripts of
virtual reference sessions, that there aren't a whole lot of frequently
asked questions.

-----Original Message-----
From: Joyce M. Latham [mailto:latham1 at students.uiuc.edu] 
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 6:17 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE: The Necessity of Real-Time Reference?

There is the question of what happens to the questions ... and answers
and resources used for answers.  These Q&A's *could* be made available
to the public right at the point of posing a request.  In fact, there is
alot of development that could take place here. (I know about the OCLC
solution -- I was looking beyond a commercial approach).  Merging of the
Q&A databases by library type, identification of most frequently asked
questions, failed requests -- cross institutional study may actually
present us with something beyond the need to re-create the print based
solutions in digital forms.


-- 
Joyce M. Latham
GSLIS -- University of Illinois